Squeeze-tube containers, also known as flexible tubes or collapsible tubes, are widely used for packaging relatively viscous products, for example, toothpaste, ointments, pastes, gels, creams, glues, paints and greases. These flexible tubes generally have an integral, deformable wall configured at one end with a dispensing nozzle (typically fitted with a cap) and at the other end with a flattened seal. The contents of the tube are generally dispensed by removing the cap and then manually squeezing the tube walls until the desired amount of product flows from the nozzle. However, the direction of movement of product within the tube is actually random, i.e., the product simply moves away from the point at which the tube is currently being squeezed. Thus, while a relatively full flexible tube may easily be manipulated to expel the contents, as the tube empties, further manipulation of the walls may only serve to move the remaining product back and forth within the tube. The user must then “chase” the product by re-squeezing the tube again and again, a procedure which can prove vexing to most users. This often results in a significant amount of “stranded” product, i.e., unused product left within the tube when it is discarded by the user because it was too troublesome for the user to extract it. Obviously, such practices result in a waste of the user's time and money.
The problem of minimizing the amount of product “stranded” in flexible tubes has aggravated users for some time. Further, while “stranding” was recognized as a problem with old-style flexible tubes having ductile metal walls, it has become even more pronounced since the introduction of flexible tubes having relatively resilient plastic walls which tend to spring back into their original shape after being squeezed.
Many devices have been proposed to assist in the maintenance of flexible tubes as the contents are dispensed. Many of these devices, while innovative, nonetheless proved to be too expensive to produce, too complicated to use, and/or excessively large for widespread use. A need therefore exists, for an apparatus for maintaining/managing the walls of flexible tubes during dispensing of the contents which is compact, inexpensive to produce, and easy to use.